The Divide
The '''Divide' is a common term for a stretch of devastated land in the northwestern Mojave Wasteland, in the Amargosa Valley, on top of the Nevada/California border. It is the setting of Lonesome Road. Background An isolated town located on the California/Nevada border, Hopeville and its bigger brother, Ashton, were established in the late 21st century. Beneath the towns lay an extensive network of nuclear missile silos built under the auspices of the Commonwealth Defense Administration Ballistic Defense Division. The complex was established in a geologically unstable region, where minor earthquakes were quite common. Military authorities downplayed these problems, confident in the safety of American engineering.Jackie's terminal; Jackie's Computer, Earthquakes: "Fantastic. Now there's earthquakes. Earthquakes! Sure, Commander Devlin says they're minor ones and nothing to worry about, but come on. EARTHQUAKES. Did no one think to check fault lines before they built a massive UNDERGROUND MISSILE COMPLEX? Your tax dollars at work, folks. Swear to God, when my term's up I'm moving to Canada." Another problem was caused by the fact that the Army used Hopeville as proving grounds for Big MT's weather control research, using the denizens of the regions as guinea pigs.Y-0 research center terminals; Terminal, Dispenser Funding Update: "Got the funding from Sinclair. Near as I can tell, he's willing to not only bankrupt himself for these devices, he's struck a deal with the Big MT executives, letting the Villa become a lab for the supposedly-harmless prototype tech here. I've seen the Big MT execs do this with other isolated towns (Hopeville Meteorological research up north), and the whole process, it's not what I signed up for."Ulysses log Y-17.16 By 2077, the region had a large community of political dissidents, including local hippies, who protested the ongoing Sino-American War and the military at construction camps across both Hopeville and Ashton. In an example of "white-hot rage of capitalist justice," the Political Office arranged to have them rounded up and sent to Big MT as test subjects for the company's latest projects, aided by troops from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment under the command of General Wellesley, military liaison to Big MT.Advanced riot gearThird Street Municipal building terminals; Office of the Treasurer Terminal, Inter-Office EmailThird Street Municipal building terminals; Office of the Treasurer Terminal, Memo from Commander Devlin During the Great War, the nuclear missiles stored in the missile silos were never launched, remaining safely in their berths for the next two centuries.The missiles never launched, which is a major plot point throughout Lonesome Road. The first Divide Although Hopeville and Ashton were abandoned after the War, a small community would inhabit the storm-covered lands. With the harsh weather unleashed on it constantly from the Big MT, those who inhabited the ruins of the Old World in Hopeville and Ashton drew strength and inspiration from the ancient symbols and technology that surrounded them. In the 23rd century, the settlement flourished thanks to a single courier who was willing to brave the seasons and storms to deliver packages to the community. Whatever the reason, the courier braved that hard road repeatedly, giving them hope and a connection to civilization.Ulysses: "Never would have known the Divide had it not been for you. have been just a job. |{trying to convince himself} }}" (Ulysses' dialogue) This community eventually styled itself the Divide, taking name not from the monstrous gash in the earth that would eventually appear there, but its role both as a divide and a bridge between the east and west, the New California Republic and the Mojave Wasteland. The community had a chance to become something akin to a second Shady Sands, founding something better than either the NCR or the Legion.The Courier: "This road leads nowhere. There's nothing in the Divide." Ulysses: "Many in the Mojave think the Divide's nothing but canyon and storm. always. Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing East. This time... the Divide's in the other direction.|{Comes back to present} }} And if your eyes try to make sense of it when you reach it... " The Courier: "If you blame me for what happened here at the Divide - why do you care?" Ulysses: " The Divide, its buildings, its people, were built around those same markings, surrounded them here... ...markings like the flag on my back. When I your road to the Divide those years ago, I saw the symbol I wore all around me. An Old World symbol. Strong, to survive here - its people, strong. Caesar was right to want it dead. NCR was right to want to rake their claws in it. Seeing it... changed me, just as seeing Hoover Dam changed Caesar and the NCR. " (Ulysses' dialogue) The nation that would stir to life here had a chance of bridging the gap between the East and the West, between Caesar's tribes and the republic. Something greater than either, that could unify the two flags into a single banner.The Courier: "So you believed in this place. What it once was." Ulysses: " place I could have set my flag.|{Bitter} }} Not the America of old. But something larger than the tribes of the East, something larger than the houses of the West. Something better. The Divide... could have bridged both, like Hoover Dam. me here, so that I could see.|{Slow, accusing} }} " (Ulysses' dialogue) Before that could happen, however, the New California Republic moved in, following the trail blazed by the Courier. The Divide would become a major secondary route into the Mojave, reducing the traffic on the Long 15 to the core lands of the republic. Both the Army and the merchant houses of the republic benefited from the new route established through the storm-wracked region. Naturally, two lifelines leading into the Mojave were a serious problem for Caesar's strategy, as it gave the NCR a logistical advantage despite the intense campaign of sabotage in the period leading up to the First Battle of Hoover Dam.The Courier: "On the High Road, you mentioned NCR and Legion fought here... before and after the Divide?" Ulysses: The two-headed Bear made its claim, dug its claws into the trail you made. For once, it seemed like it might succeed - cut a route to the Mojave. Couldn't let NCR stay in the Divide. Trade route, road the military could use... can't have two roads into the Mojave. " (Ulysses' dialogue) In the months leading up to the battle, Caesar dispatched a group of frumentarii and assassins to cut the supply line and deny the road to the republic, building on the destruction of New Canaan and raids on caravans out west.The Courier: "NCR NCR would have needed this supply line open to reinforce the Mojave - and Hoover Dam." Ulysses: " The Bear, NCR, couldn't be allowed to reach it easily. Long 15... Canaan... both bad enough. ...but once found, it was all Caesar could see. That, and the flag beyond it, another symbol, big enough to challenge him. And the Divide, one of the roads to it - Legion was tasked with cutting that artery. If you can't kill the Bear in one stroke, bleed it, starve it. That kind of murder... it's what any of the would have done. Now... the Divide belongs to history." (Ulysses' dialogue)The Courier: "Legion The Legion would want to cut this road off if it had been a supply line to Hoover Dam." Ulysses: " The Bear, NCR, couldn't be allowed to reach it easily. Long 15... Canaan... both bad enough. ...but once found, it was all Caesar could see. That, and the flag beyond it, another symbol, big enough to challenge him. And the Divide, one of the roads to it - Legion was tasked with cutting that artery. If you can't kill the Bear in one stroke, bleed it, starve it. That kind of murder... it's what any of the would have done. Now... the Divide belongs to history." (Ulysses' dialogue)The Courier: "NCR Those bodies in the silo were NCR soldiers... some special forces." Ulysses: " " (Ulysses' dialogue)The Courier: "Legion The dead in the silo, some were Legion Frumentarii, scouts. Assassins." Ulysses: " " (Ulysses' dialogue) The second Divide However, it was the Courier that established the land trail to the Divide who would play the pivotal role. As legionaries and NCR troops executed the plans of their masters, the Courier delivered a single package from the faraway Navarro, recovered by the republic and sent to the Divide. The NCR believed the people who lived among the silos and Old World symbols could help them make sense of the item recovered in the Enclave's former base. What they didn't realize was that the package would seal the Divide's doom. After the Courier delivered it, the citizens of the Divide opened it up and the device suddenly activated, linking with the launch computers hidden in the dormant silos and sending launch codes and overrides. Warheads started exploding beneath the ground, triggering a massive earthquake that ripped the land open, twisting Ashton, Hopeville and the military facilities above and beneath. It became an expanse of cracked, blighted landscape, while the sand and ash from the devastation was caught by the artificial storms, turning already savage weather into one, monstrous dust stormThe Courier: "What happened here?" Ulysses: "You delivered a package. Had markings that matched those in the Divide. Not all... but enough. Military markings, from someplace the Bear had savaged in the West. " The Courier: "You said I brought it from the West?" Ulysses: " - carried that thing to the Divide. I know because I followed you as you walked the road, watched you do it. You brought it here, to the community you built. And you are responsible for what happened after - when the device opened, started to speak. When it did, the Divide answered back. missiles you've seen, buried in their silos. They exploded beneath the ground, cracked the landscape. Sand, ash... the dead... the Divide skies became a graveyard." (Ulysses' dialogue)Chris Avellone talks about the package from Lonesome Road that could skin a man alive.The Courier: "What was strange about it?" Johnson Nash: "That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it. we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive.|{Irritated} }} " (Johnson Nash's dialogue) In fact, it did flay people alive. Those who weren't killed by the nuclear detonations or debris let loose by the earthquake were twisted by the radioactive storms, flayed alive and turned into mutants, dead men walking sustained only by the radiation without and the hate within. Regardless of their previous affiliation, the marked men banded together into packs, repairing their armor and weapons with whatever the new Divide provided.The Courier: " " The Courier: " " Ulysses: "SUCCEEDED what I've seen of their tactics, movements - recovery.|{Nods, agreeing} }} Those wounds - they couldn't live otherwise. The Divide winds have torn the skin from many of them - be the radiation is the only thing keeping them walking. Make camp near silos... warheads. " (Ulysses' dialogue) There was only one survivor, saved from death or marking by the medical robots of the Divide, which mistook the Stars and Stripes on his back for a U.S. military uniform. He walked out of the Divide, whole on the outside, but broken within.The Courier: "If you saw this happen, then how did you survive?" Ulysses: " I was the only survivor, Your package, the message inside, awoke medical machines... close to the one that shadows you... began to build themselves, then others. They only take what parts they find in the Divide, never roam beyond it - can't even leave the silos without a human to shadow, like hounds. Maybe they saw the flag on my jacket, thought I was of America. If so, history saved me. A sign." (Ulysses' dialogue) Despite the loss of the Legion task force, the destruction of the Divide was a strategic victory for the Legion. With the land around Hopeville and Ashton destroyed and the sandstorm wreaking havoc on all who tried to pass through, the NCR lost its secondary supply route and couldn't take California State Route 127 north to get around the mountains anymore. Companies sent through were torn apart before they even reached Nevada soil, with Ranger scouts confirming that the route was impassable.NCR Ranger action reports: "I don't think this will be a suitable route for bringing troops to Hoover Dam. The terrain is a nightmare, we've seen evidence of hostile indigenous life, and the Geiger counters are ticking like a grandfather clock on turbo. Full report when the advance scouts come back at 2300, but as of now I'm recommending we abandon this mission."''The Courier: ''"The Divide blocked all of their northern land routes?" Joshua Graham: "Not all of them. But they couldn't take 127 north to get around the mountains. As if Death Valley weren't enough, they had the Divide and Big Empty to deal with. From what the Legion's explorers reported, the Big Empty may as well have been a wall to any living thing approaching it." (Joshua Graham's dialogue)The Courier: "What's at the Divide?" Joshua Graham: "I don't know for certain, and I don't think NCR knows, either. Whatever happened at the Divide was too much for them to handle. Our told us what they saw. Only fools and madmen would march into a place like that. All roads wind down to the same spot, the grave. They said all that's left there is a gaping wound cut into the Earth, cursed and damned. No place for God-fearing folk." (Joshua Graham's dialogue) Without it, NCR could not march reinforcements into Nevada fast enough to capitalize on their victory at the First Battle of Hoover Dam, giving Caesar time to retreat to Arizona and prepare his Legion for another confrontation.The Courier: "I'm guessing you don't like Caesar very much." Joshua Graham: "Love the sinner, hate the sin. With Caesar, it's often very difficult to see through all of that sin to the person inside. I can say that we were both lucky that NCR's supply lines and land routes north of Mojave Outpost were destroyed before the Battle of Hoover Dam. Something bad happened near Death Valley, at a place called the Divide. NCR couldn't cut across anymore and it slowed down their reinforcements. Terrible storms ripped entire companies apart before they even got to Nevada soil. The aftermath of Hoover Dam could have been even worse for Caesar." (Joshua Graham's dialogue) The story of the Divide continued, however. The memory of the settlement has vanished from common consciousness, scrubbed by the violent storms that rendered it impossible to brave for all but the hardiest of travelers. One person remembered. Ulysses walked the wastes for four more years, reflecting on the destruction brought upon the fledgling nation by a single courier. Disillusioned with the Legion and the NCR alike, Ulysses decided to make history repeat itself. Unlike the courier, however, he would do so with open eyes. He gathered knowledge and slowly mastered the Divide's many secrets, bringing the nuclear silos back to life as best he could. The arrival of ED-E in the Mojave Wasteland sped the process up greatly, as the Divide's machines remotely scanned the Enclave eyebot and manufactured a new series of robots that accelerated the restoration of the silos. In the process, fragments of the nuclear detonator that the Courier delivered were scavenged and used to manufacture a unique maintenance eyebot at the Hopeville missile silo. Recognizing this as an auspicious moment, Ulysses sent a single message to the Courier who just cheated death at Goodsprings, inviting them to walk the lonesome road through the Divide and bring the eyebot to him. Then he waited, preparing the nuclear missiles to wipe the slate clean once more, but not before he had a chance for reckoning with the Courier, beneath the storms of the divide and the Old World flag. Layout Located northwest of the Mojave Wasteland, in the Amargosa Valley, the Divide is a region that was once the home of Hopeville, a planned community built around and over a ballistic missile silo complex, and Ashton, a large city that doubled as a major highway junction. However, whatever the Divide was is largely irrelevant, as the nuclear disaster that befell the region at the Courier's hands has turned it into an unrecognizable mess of twisted metal, concrete and dirt, slowly weathered by the massive sandstorm blanketing the entire region. The nuclear missiles concealed within Ashton's silos were launched by the automatic detonator delivered by the Courier, exploding beneath the ground. The explosions combined with the presence of the Pahrump Valley fault line created a massive canyon stretching east to west, filled with collapsed buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure from Ashton. The highway network was warped and twisted by the combination of factors, with entire fragments of the elevated superhighway breaking off and crushing buildings below. Hopeville and adjacent southern military facilities escaped much of the devastation, as missile silos were outside the range of the detonator's transmitter. However, they were subjected to the terrifying earthquakes and the subsequent storms, with at least one missile bunker listing nearly fifteen degrees due to the shifting foundations. Structural reinforcement and armor ensured the survival of these installations, complete with power infrastructure. Related quests * The Silo Notes * It takes three in-game days to travel between the Mojave Wasteland and The Divide. * According to Joshua Graham, The Divide lies north of the Mojave near Death Valley but is not located in Nevada. * Exiting and entering The Divide resets water, food and sleep counters to 0 in Hardcore mode. Appearances The Divide only appears in the add-on Lonesome Road and as a map in Old World Blues, but the location is mentioned in Fallout: New Vegas and the add-ons: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, and Old World Blues. Behind the scenes * Before the release of Lonesome Road, Chris Avellone's Twitter avatar showed the Divide. * The goal of Chris Avellone when setting out to create Lonesome Road was to deliver a Zelazny-style Damnation Alley experience in the Fallout universe. * The Divide is geographically similar to that of Amargosa Valley and Death Valley, covering the state line of Nevada and California, respectively, in the Mojave Desert. The real world former town of Ashton, Nevada is located here and notably, the nuclear weapon testing facility National Criticality Experiments Research Center within the Nevada Test Site is located to the northeast. Gallery The Divide map.jpg|The Divide map Divide.jpg Divide.png Divide2.png Divide3.png CaveOfTheAbaddon.png|Cave of the Abaddon, an atypical cave created with an accumulation of ruined skyscrapers Nvdlc03dividepleximap.png|The Divide map shown in Big MT The_Divide.jpg UlyssesDivide.png|Ulysses, the sentinel of the Divide UlyssesDivide2.png|Ulysses watching over the Divide at night Divide scenery.jpg Divide panorama.jpg|Divide panorama, concept art by Joe Sanabria References Category:Lonesome Road locations Category:Fallout: New Vegas mentioned-only locations Category:Dead Money mentioned-only locations Category:Honest Hearts mentioned-only locations Category:Old World Blues mentioned-only locations Category:Regions de:Die Kluft es:La Divisoria fr:Ligne de Partage pl:Rozpadlina pt:The Divide ru:Разлом (локация) uk:Розлом (локація) zh:The Divide